COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



difficulty in classifying the lowly animals pro- 

 visionally grouped by Cuvier as radiata, when 

 contrasted with the ease with which naturalists 

 distinguish the higher sub-kingdoms. 



Now all this complex arrangement of organ- 

 isms in groups within groups, resembling each 

 other at the bottom of the scale and differing 

 most widely at the top, is just the arrangement 

 which, as we have seen, must result from ge- 

 netic relationship ; and upon any other theory 

 than that of derivation it is utterly inexplicable. 

 If each species has been separately created, no 

 reason can be assigned for such an arrangement, 

 — unless perchance some one can be found 

 hardy enough to maintain that it was intended 

 as a snare and a delusion for human intelligence. 

 The old opponents of geology, who strove to 

 maintain at whatever cost the scientific credit of 

 the Mosaic myth of the creation, asserted that 

 fossil plants and animals were created already 

 dead and petrified, just for the fun of the thing. 

 Manifestly those persons take a quite similar 

 position who pretend that God created sepa- 

 rately the horse, ass, zebra, and quagga, having 

 previously created a beast enough like all of 

 them to be their common grandfather. Indeed, 

 so powerful is this argument from classification 

 that it has always seemed to me sufficient by it- 

 self to decide the case in favour of the theory 

 of derivation. In my own case, the facts pre- 



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